Comfortable with Corruption

As corruption seeps into the system, trust that binds individuals, organisations, and governments together begins to fray, creating cracks that undermine the very foundation of society. Let's not get too comfortable with corruption, cautions Maj. Gen. Atanu Pattanaik (R)

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LET'S admit without any more pretence. We, as a society, are comfortable with corruption.

Maybe we celebrate it, revel in it. There are humungous amounts of cash recoveries, so much that the cash counting machines these days demand rest and recoup as a matter of rights. A few crores of cash are the new normal. Incidents like the one where an estimated 15 crores cash got burnt down in a fire in a plush Lutyens bungalow do raise an eyebrow. Sometimes there are faint expressions of consternation when a corrupt official is caught, but I suspect there is underlying disbelief about the official's carelessness and ineptitude in 'managing' his or her ill-gotten assets.

The trigger for writing this op-edit is not the reports about the raids and eye popping cash seizures involving the Chief Engineer (Rural Development) Baikuntha Sarangi or the arrest of the Deputy Director Enforcement Directorate Bhubaneswar Chintan Raghubanshi or the dozens of such cases in the past few weeks and months. The trigger is a headlines that caught my eyes last week that as many as 885 of the 1,085 students from a total of six schools in Odisha's Bargarh district were found to have indulged in malpractice in their Class 10 and 12 exams. Because of this, CBSE has asked the students to reappear for the exams in the respective subjects. Out of the 885 students set to reappear for the exam, 579 are Class 10 students while 306 are from Class 12. While Class 10 students used unfair means in Odia and English exams, Class 12 students used unfair means in almost all subjects. The silver lining in this sordid episode is that there were still 200 students out of a total 1,085 who resisted the temptation to 'achieve esoteric success' and did not indulge in malpractices.